I want you to take a minute and think back on the last five years of your life.
Did they go by fast?
Yeah, mine too.
There are over seven billion people living on the earth right now—and counting. We all need to come to the realization that in only a few decades, all those people will be gone, and the earth will be filled with all new people.
We’re all passing through like the earth is a McDonald’s drive-through window, and most of us usually end up ordering the most unhealthy things for our lives. The fast track we’re on is only meant to prepare us to get back to where we were all meant to be—resting in God’s heart.
Like a bride in her husband’s arms, we are all meant to find our true rest in Jesus because he is the only lover of our souls able to fulfill our deepest, most hidden desires. But that inner rest doesn’t start the day we die and leave this planet.
It all starts the day we step into Christ and enter into God’s rest through faith. It can start now. And this direction in Colossians is a great example of how we stay in rest:
Set your minds and keep focused habitually on the things above [the heavenly things], not on things that are on the earth [which have only temporal value]. For you died [to this world], and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:2–3 AMP)
It’s a heavenly reality, my friends. Yes, it may seem mystical, but it is also real and tangible.
Jesus is not some handsome white dude from history with long hair, a robe, and sandals like in the movies. He is God’s only answer for this hurting world, and the only one who will lead us into God’s true rest.
When I say rest, I don’t mean sleep. I’m describing a position in God’s heart, in the spiritual dimension, that is handed to you now and will be your place in God forever. It’s a place of peace and indescribable happiness that surpasses all understanding. A high nobody has ever achieved on this planet—one that comes from the highest source of glory available. A love that never fades. A person—the only person—who never has and never will let any of us down in the end.
Look: I know pain. And I know you do too. God cares deeply about all our pain. You just read my story—I had close to a decade of what most would call bad luck. I could’ve given God the finger and walked away.
But I didn’t.
You know why?
Because I knew he would come through and bring indescribable happiness out of my pain. Whether it took him one year, two, or many years down the line, I knew he would come through for me and Jennea in some way, turn around every injustice we were battling, and bring lasting happiness from it.
I was right.
You just read it, and I just lived it.
And I’m still living it.
I said this before, but I need to say it again because it’s true.
I.
Am.
Barely.
Getting.
Started.
I hope you took notice of my amazingly happy, changed life. Because God can—and will—do the same for you.
I’m hoping there will be a lot of good things to come from this book, but nothing would make me happier than for as many of you as possible to pray these words with me and mean them from your heart.
Jesus,
Right now, take my life into your hands completely. As I enter into a nonstop search for you, please make everything brand-new inside me, and let me feel the effects of my new life starting right now. Forgive me, wash away all the residue of my past from this day backward, make everything brand-new, and turn all of the dirtiness from my past into something beautiful from this day forward. Lord, open my spiritual eyes and ears so that I can see and understand that the spiritual world is very real. Help me believe that it’s more real than anything I can see with my eyes on earth because one day these earthly eyes will stop seeing completely. Reveal your love to me and show me how to truly love you back. Amen.